The following background information may present examples of specific aspects of the prior art (e.g., without limitation, approaches, facts, or common wisdom) that, while expected to be helpful to further educate the reader as to additional aspects of the prior art, is not to be construed as limiting the present invention, or any embodiments thereof, to anything stated or implied therein or inferred thereupon.
Generally, a chainsaw is a portable, mechanical saw which cuts with a set of teeth attached to a rotating chain that runs along a guide bar. It is used in activities such as tree felling, limbing, bucking, pruning, cutting firebreaks in wildland fire suppression, and harvesting of firewood. The use of hand operated chain saws or saws manipulated by heavy machinery are commonly used. Both of these typical methods of cutting down trees requires access to the base of the tree. In the case of a heavy machine, such as, for example an excavator with a feller buncher head attached to the distal end of the arm requires a significant amount of free space adjacent to the base of the tree so that the excavator may access the tree.
It is known that when tall trees die through bushfire, flood or disease they become particularly dangerous. Where trees are located near powerlines, it becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible, to cut the tree down from the ground. Land areas in the vicinity of power lines must be kept free of trees, as it is thus possible to prevent line damage caused by trees that might touch the electricity wires and disturbances in power distribution caused thereby. Often, where growing trees have been inappropriately planted or naturally occur near powerlines, there is an increasing need to frequently trim and cut back those trees to ensure that they do not impede the powerlines.
Often, access to the base of a tree is not always available or practical. In the case of trees located on high or steep mountain sides, road access may not be available. In addition, in the case of thick forests where only a single tree is desired to be cut down, previous methods have required having a worker either walk to the location or be lowered to the ground from a helicopter proximate to the target tree.
Other proposals have involved cutting trees from the air. The problem with these tree cutting devices is that they do not provide an adjustable and controlled cutting plane for the blade, and they are not compactable adaptable to a variety of aircraft. Even though the above cited tree cutting devices meet some of the needs of the market, an airborne vegetation cutting assembly that is aerially suspended by an aircraft to simultaneously grapple, cut, and trim a vegetation, while controlling the angle of a cutting plane across the vegetation through controlled rotation and pivoting of a connective knuckle, and strategic positioning of the aircraft is still desired.